


Prey

by AMax76



Category: Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure (Cartoon)
Genre: Character Death, Gen, Hurt Varian (Disney), Post-Series, Protective Varian (Disney), Varian Angst (Disney)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-01
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-13 02:15:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29769165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AMax76/pseuds/AMax76
Summary: Varian was trying to heal from his past. A special set of skills, born from his time surviving, were harsh reminders of the things he endured. But maybe those skills could be used for good, when something more important than his own survival was at stake...
Relationships: Angry | Keira & Red | Catalina & Lance Strongbow, Angry | Keira & Red | Catalina (Disney), Lance Strongbow & Varian, Red | Catalina & Varian (Disney)
Comments: 16
Kudos: 39





	Prey

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cartoon_girl2](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cartoon_girl2/gifts).



> Okay, I know I'm technically still on hiatus, but Cartoon_girl2 told me I wasn't allowed to write this kind of story, and I said "you can't tell me what to do." So here we are. Sorry. I wrote this in the space of, like, two hours so sorry if it's bad.
> 
> Trigger warnings: character death, blood, being shot

Varian didn’t like feeling like prey. He was too familiar with it. Old Corona had become a hunting ground, masked men chasing him down and grabbing his arms and dragging him back to that house with its amber tomb. He couldn’t escape, couldn’t even try. Three months of running like a scared animal, of feeling his hunters’ breath on his neck, of being herded and hounded and corralled like he wasn’t even human. Because to them, he wasn’t. He was nothing, just their prey.

Then running through the tunnels with Rapunzel, avoiding traps and snares. Every step could be the one that led to his grave, every breath could be the last one to pass his lips. He didn’t have time to think about it, too busy focusing on getting to the Sundrop flower so he could save his dad.

Then the army that had marched on his house. Granted, he had taken their queen prisoner, so that was fair. But negotiation and communication had been sacrificed in favor of violence, and Varian had defended his home against invaders who were more than willing to kill him. It didn’t come to that, thankfully, as he had prepared for them, but a single slip could have meant his doom. In the end, he failed, and he found himself locked in a cage.

Prison was no better, the jeering guards who made it their mission to make his life miserable and the cellmate who twisted and manipulated and used him. Varian got quite the education there, learning tricks and habits that frightened his friends and family. They stared in shock when he made comments about how to set a broken bone with no medical supplies, or how to tell if food had been drugged, or how to tell if a person was an actual psychopath or just cruel within a few minutes of meeting them. He absorbed this knowledge and applied it, letting it become a part of him, instinctual and reflexive.

Getting out of prison was jarring, even while he was still under Andrew’s control, but being freed from him as well completely threw the alchemist for a loop. His world, harsh and cold and familiar, was suddenly turned upside down. No longer did he need to look over his shoulder constantly. No longer did he have to check his food before he ate. No longer did he need to sleep with one eye open.

Just because he didn’t need to didn’t mean he didn’t, though. Too deeply ingrained in his mind were the habits he’d picked up. He could never go back to the innocent child they knew before, no matter how much they wanted him to. And he knew they did.

Part of him wanted it, too. He wanted to forget the events of the last two years, to forget that he sunk low enough to try to murder people, to forget the time he spent in prison, to forget all the things he’d been forced to do and learn to survive. He wanted to stop acting like an animal being hunted.

They tried to help him. They really did. Rapunzel had art days with him. His dad didn’t question his skepticism or constant need for affirmation. Angry and Catalina tried to include him in their activities. As much as they tried, though, nothing seemed to work. Art days with Rapunzel descended into a recurrence of his guilt complex. He couldn’t help but feel that his dad was disappointed in him or even afraid of him, no matter how often Quirin assured him it wasn’t true. And the girls tended to forget and talk about their criminal pasts every once in a while.

Surprisingly, it was Eugene and Lance who were able to help him the most. They understood where he was coming from, having both been subjected to similar experiences. Not quite the same, but similar. They still did the same things. They hadn’t gotten over their pasts, either. And they told him it was okay, that he didn’t have to get over it immediately, that healing took time.

And slowly, he was healing. He started eating food that his friends prepared for him without checking it first. He stopped hating himself for crying in front of them. He didn’t look over his shoulder as much because he knew who had his back.

He might never heal fully. But he was learning.

Catalina was angry.

Why was she angry again? That felt very important, but he couldn't seem to remember.

Had Angry said something to her? What had she said? Had someone else done something?

That didn’t seem important. All that was important was that Catalina was angry.

And when Catalina got angry, she sometimes lost control. Not always, just sometimes. She was doing good. Varian was proud of her. He knew how hard she tried. And he pitied her, since the curse could have very easily become his if he’d been madder and less self-deprecating in the weeks after he’d been pardoned. He often wondered what would have happened if he’d gotten it instead. Would he have turned on those who had preyed on him for so long, finally in a position where he could be the hunter? Would they have been able to calm him down, to teach him control, or would he have ravaged the kingdom, tearing it apart at the seams?

No, it was good that it was Catalina. She was calm and easygoing, her friends and family helping her keep control when things got to be too much.

Her friends and family were good. They helped her. They helped him, too, when he struggled, when he was in pain.

Like now.

He looked up into Lance’s tear-filled eyes. The man glanced down, his lips moving. _Hold on_.

Hold on? Hold on to what? Him?

Varian lifted a hand to clutch at his friend’s shirt. Or tried to, at least. He couldn't seem to move his arm. Trying only made a wave of fire shoot down his side. He yelped and stayed still. No, Lance would have to hold on to him.

Staying still helped ease the pain. He tilted his head slightly. Why was he hurting? A dark stain, spreading across his right side, caught his eye. Was that…

He lost consciousness.

It hurt. He was on fire. Someone was holding him. He growled, fighting against the restraining hands. This was one of his bad days, and he fought like he was back with _them_ , with the people who hurt him and yelled at him and tried to kill him sometimes.

Was it a bad day? It felt like one of his bad days.

He blinked in and out of consciousness, wavering between the blessedness of sleep that he couldn't embrace and the fiery pain of alertness that he’d rather avoid. Eventually, the pain settled down a bit, enough to let him relax only slightly. His nerves wouldn’t let him rest, not completely, and he tried to get a grip on reality.

He became aware of a hand holding his. Not harshly, not like _them_ . A tear-streaked face hovered over him, framed by short brown hair. Green eyes stared back at his blue ones. Her mouth was moving, too. _Stay with me._

Stay where? He didn’t plan to go anywhere.

Two other green eyes, a face decorated with red paint, red hair pulled up in pigtails. Catalina. Why was she crying? Hadn’t she been mad? Why was she sad now? He didn’t like seeing her sad. But sad was better than mad, wasn’t it? Her face paint was streaking. Maybe he could help her redo it when he didn’t hurt.

Why did he hurt again?

Oh, her mouth was moving.

_I’m sorry, I’m sorry, please be okay…_

Why was she sorry? Had something happened?

She was mad, right? Had she lost control? What had happened after that?

His head hurt. He didn’t have answers. And his side and ribs hurt. Breathing was hard.

He tried to lift a hand to brush away her tears, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t move his hand. Why?

Catalina picked up his hand, pressing it to her face. He moved his thumb across her cheek. He did this sometimes when she was sad. He would hold her and tell her everything would be okay and dry her tears. She did the same for him on his bad days. And she knew what it was like to be angry, so she helped him then, too.

Then she was gone from his side, and several others took her place. He felt like he should know them, like he saw them too often, but never in a good way. Not bad, like the guards, but not good. Like when he got hurt. Was that why they were here? He was hurt. Were they doctors? Would they make him stop hurting?

But he wasn’t hurting that bad now. The pain had faded, now dull and distant rather than stabbing. It was warm, though, not fiery but uncomfortable. He wanted to go to sleep. Maybe he would feel better when he woke up.

But Eugene told him that was what it felt like, didn’t he? When he died? He hurt all over, and then it started to not hurt as bad, and he fell asleep. But that wasn’t right. Varian wasn’t dying. He just needed to rest, right? He’d feel better in the morning if he could only sleep…

No. He was dying, wasn’t he? That was what happened. He was hurt badly, and now he was dying. But that wasn’t right! He had survived the three months of being hunted in Old Corona. He had survived his fall to villainy. He had survived prison and Andrew and Cassandra and Zhan Tiri. Why was he dying now? He didn’t want to die! He just wanted to sleep…

Maybe he’d just close his eyes for a few minutes…

Just to get his strength back up…

He would be okay…

He would live.

Catalina’s piercing screech rang through the infirmary as the doctor shook his head. It was too loud in her own ears, too sharp against her throat, too weak to convey how she actually felt. No, she wanted to howl, to loose her rage and scream to the moon, to make the night share her anguish. It wasn’t fair. None of this was fair. It wasn’t fair that Varian was gone. It wasn’t fair that he was gone and _she was still here._

It wasn’t fair he had died for her mistake. It wasn’t fair he had died because she had lost control.

The doctors stepped away from Varian’s bed, and she moved without thinking, tearing away from Lance’s arms and throwing herself at her friend. She buried her face in his _too still too silent_ chest, sobbing into his blood-stained vest. Screams continued to rip from her throat, but she didn’t care. She didn’t care if she was making a scene, if her cries were hurting the others’ ears. Nothing mattered anymore, not now. Why shouldn’t they hurt, when Varian had been hurt? When she hurt? When her friend wasn’t here to dry her tears and tell her everything would be okay, when her heart lay shattered on the floor beside the bed? When an ache had settled into her chest where her heart had once been and rooted in so deeply she didn’t think it would ever go away? Why _shouldn’t_ the whole world hurt, when the most beautiful soul had been ripped from it cruelly and brutally?

No, it wasn’t fair.

Past her screams, she could hear a sobbing Lance explaining to Rapunzel and Eugene, who were also crying while holding a screeching Ruddiger, what had happened. She tuned it out. She didn’t want to hear him recount that moment, that moment that Varian’s face had twisted from a relieved smile to a tortured scream.

It was her fault. If she hadn’t lost control…

She hadn’t even seen the hunter. But Varian had. He’d followed her, talked to her, calmed her down, grinning wildly when she shifted back to her human form. He had been so proud of her. He always was. And then he’d saved her.

She wasn’t used to being hunted. But he was. He knew what it was to be prey. He always looked over his shoulder, always was aware of who was around him. He saw everything, heard everything, because that was how he survived.

And now it had killed him.

He’d spent so long avoiding the hunters. And then he’d thrown himself into the path of one, taking the dart that was meant for her, letting himself be prey. All because he wanted to protect her. Because he wanted to _save her._

She felt Lance pulling her into his arms, could feel Angry embracing her. They didn’t dare try to pull her away from Varian. They just sat there with her, letting her scream, letting her sob, their tears dropping into her hair as they cried too.

It wasn’t fair. Her friend wasn’t supposed to be prey. He was supposed to be safe, protected, loved. And he had fallen at the hand of a hunter. Like an animal. Because that was what they’d treated him as. That was what they’d driven into his head.

They had made him prey. And he had died for it.

And so she wept.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry. Cartoon_girl2, please don't hate me forever. 
> 
> As always, constructive criticism is greatly appreciated. Thank you and God bless!


End file.
